The Song Fight Bulletin Board

Song Fight! Live 2017 Foodies & Hoodies

Re: Song Fight! Live 2017 Berkeley CA 15-16 September (CONFIRMED!)

Posted: Sat Jul 29, 2017 12:01 pm

by Lunkhead

Hey out there, if you are planning to attend, would you mind posting something to that effect here so we can start to get a handle on how many sets we'll be having? If we could start getting some confirmations soon that would be great. We're <7 weeks away from the show!

Re: Song Fight! Live 2017 Berkeley CA 15-16 September (CONFIRMED!)

Posted: Sat Jul 29, 2017 12:24 pm

by fluffy

fluffy wrote:I can't commit to coming yet but I'd like to.

Still this.

Re: Song Fight! Live 2017 Berkeley CA 15-16 September (CONFIRMED!)

Posted: Sat Jul 29, 2017 12:55 pm

by roymond

I'm in. I'll need a Saturday slot as I will likely be arriving late Friday night. Unless I negotiate another day off, which isn't out of the question. I should prolly come prepared for a solo set without need for rehearsals. But also available if someone needs me Saturday night.

Re: Song Fight! Live 2017 Berkeley CA 15-16 September (CONFIRMED!)

Posted: Sun Jul 30, 2017 12:48 pm

by Spud

There's a possibility I could be there. Working that out with fluffy. No plan on playing at the moment. That may change. Will keep you posted.

Re: Song Fight! Live 2017 Berkeley CA 15-16 September (CONFIRMED!)

Posted: Tue Aug 01, 2017 2:10 am

by Caravan Ray

Lunkhead wrote:I got word on Facebook that The Hell Yeahs can make it. They're just up in the Sacramento area these days, it turns out.

Omg. That is a draw card. I'll check my calendar

Re: Song Fight! Live 2017 Berkeley CA 15-16 September (CONFIRMED!)

Posted: Tue Aug 01, 2017 3:06 pm

by Jerkatorium

It is extremely likely that I will attend, but it is also extremely likely that Jerkatorium will not perform. If anyone wants me to play guitar or bass on any of their songs I should be available for that.

Re: Song Fight! Live 2017 Berkeley CA 15-16 September (CONFIRMED!)

Posted: Tue Aug 01, 2017 4:42 pm

by Lunkhead

Caravan Ray wrote:

Lunkhead wrote:I got word on Facebook that The Hell Yeahs can make it. They're just up in the Sacramento area these days, it turns out.

Omg. That is a draw card. I'll check my calendar

Great! Hope you can make it.

Jerkatorium wrote:It is extremely likely that I will attend ...

Cool!

Jerkatorium wrote:... but it is also extremely likely that Jerkatorium will not perform.

Bummer! Anything we locals could do to help make it more possibly for y'all to perform?

Re: Song Fight! Live 2017 Berkeley CA 15-16 September (CONFIRMED!)

Posted: Wed Aug 02, 2017 11:06 am

by Jerkatorium

Lunkhead wrote:

Jerkatorium wrote:... but it is also extremely likely that Jerkatorium will not perform.

Bummer! Anything we locals could do to help make it more possibly for y'all to perform?

tl;dr warning - a navel-gazing self-assessment follows:

I can't speak for Chumpy, but I think SFL 2015 was a great learning experience: Jerkatorium is essentially a studio project and not a live band. SFL 2015 was the first time we'd ever played together in person, and it was not good (my fault, not Chumpy's). Over the two years since SFL 2015 Chumpy and I have jammed, rehearsed, and/or performed together in-person exactly zero times (mostly because we live literally a thousand miles apart).

I believe a not-insignificant amount of Jerkatorium's appeal is the production. There's only the two of us, but we have drum tracks, piano, organ, synthesizers, guitars, bass, and a minimum of three tracks of backing vocals for every song. We spend hours and hours trying to get each recording to sound right. When you strip away all of that and put two nervous novices up on stage to try to re-create that magic with an acoustic guitar and an out-of-tune accordion, you get crap. Chumpy and I have discussed the possibility of using a karaoke-type backing track (essentially the recorded song minus the guitar and lead vocal tracks) to supplement a live performance, but somebody else did that at a SFL and people grumbled about it.

I am certain that Chumpy could pull off some charming G&G versions of Jerkatorium songs, but I have a terrible singing voice so my involvement could only drag such a performance down, and Chumpy mentioned that so far it looks like he won't be available for SFL Sept 15-16 anyway. I have a bit of a 'never say never' attitude about it, but at this point a Jerkatorium performance seems very very unlikely.

Re: Song Fight! Live 2017 Berkeley CA 15-16 September (CONFIRMED!)

Posted: Wed Aug 02, 2017 12:09 pm

by fluffy

I totally get that feeling, although you were fine IMO.

You should listen to the old recordings of my performances from my first few Song Fight Lives. (Please don't, they're terrible.) I had I idea what I was doing on stage and I thought things would Just Work. My performances got a lot better when I started to adapt my songs specifically to the constraints and uncertainty of a live performance.

It also helps to think of SFL less as a gig and more as hey, we are hanging out and having fun around the music we share online. It's a weekend spent LARPing.

Re: Song Fight! Live 2017 Berkeley CA 15-16 September (CONFIRMED!)

Posted: Wed Aug 02, 2017 2:45 pm

by Lunkhead

fluffy wrote:It also helps to think of SFL less as a gig and more as hey, we are hanging out and having fun around the music we share online. It's a weekend spent LARPing.

Yeah! That is a great way to look at it. First of all, nobody is obliged to perform, of course. No pressure there from the crowd. If you feel like there's any way you can perform that would be fun for you, that's all you should care about. This is an audience that will listen and cheer and applaud however you do it if you do it.

I personally think the backing tracks thing is totally fine. If people grumbled about it, f 'em (was I one of them?! I hope not!). I've seen that done to great effect by ADD and others.

Re: Song Fight! Live 2017 Berkeley CA 15-16 September (CONFIRMED!)

Posted: Wed Aug 02, 2017 3:10 pm

by fluffy

Yeah there have been quite a few bands that have used the backing track to varying levels of success; MC Poncho at Austin 2004 comes to mind as one which was well-received, for example. I think peoples' reactions depend largely on the attitude of the performers, and the listeners' own innate biases. I think where people get annoyed is when the backing track is literally just the Song Fight entry version minus the vocals, making it into karaoke night rather than a new performance.

Re: Song Fight! Live 2017 Berkeley CA 15-16 September (CONFIRMED!)

Posted: Wed Aug 02, 2017 3:27 pm

by ken

We should all remember how great the Landfills became as a live act with a laptop. So good.

Re: Song Fight! Live 2017 Berkeley CA 15-16 September (CONFIRMED!)

Posted: Wed Aug 02, 2017 8:22 pm

by Lunkhead

ken wrote:We should all remember how great the Landfills became as a live act with a laptop. So good.

Re: Song Fight! Live 2017 Berkeley CA 15-16 September (CONFIRMED!)

The best Landfills show was at that place off Alemeny Boulevard in San Francisco. The Accordian?

Re: Song Fight! Live 2017 Berkeley CA 15-16 September (CONFIRMED!)

Posted: Sat Aug 05, 2017 12:08 pm

by fluffy

At Boston I remember The Landfills using a prerecorded backing CD (Adjuster's reasoning being that all he'd be doing is pressing a single button on the laptop anyway), and there being a lot of grumbling about it at the time (full disclosure: I was one of the grumblers, but I was also 100% a jerk for it). I wasn't at any of their other live performances AFAIK.

IMO there should be at least some live aspect to the musical performance other than vocals, but like having a backing CD and then guitar + vocals is perfectly fine. And there's definitely wiggle room for certain things, like rap/hip-hop it's pretty standard for performers to use a pre-sequenced set of beats for their backing track and so MC Poncho doing that at Austin seemed totally fine.

I like the approach that ADD has often taken, where he'll use a backing CD for just rhythm and the rhythm will be very specifically NOT attempting to sound live (like it'll be an analog drum machine or whatever).

I wonder if the psychological difference between the way a live-prerecorded balance is taken is based on how much "risk" is involved in things going poorly, like if something seems like it's on rails and has no chance of failure then it's not going to be as appreciated in a live context. See also people getting mad at pop stars lip syncing their performances.

But anyway these days I feel like the important part of Song Fight Live is that we're all getting together and having fun, and I mean we see "person singing to prerecorded backing track" on America's Got Talent all the freaking time and everyone thinks it's great so why can't we do that too?

Re: Song Fight! Live 2017 Berkeley CA 15-16 September (CONFIRMED!)

Posted: Mon Aug 07, 2017 9:01 am

by ken

This thread is getting a little of track.

I would like to perform a solo set, possibly with other folks playing along.

Re: Song Fight! Live 2017 Berkeley CA 15-16 September (CONFIRMED!)

Posted: Mon Aug 07, 2017 12:33 pm

by glennny

I will prepare a Glennny set with a full band. I'm hoping we can perform.

BTW did we settle on the name? I'd like to take a crack at some artwork.

Re: Song Fight! Live 2017 Berkeley CA 15-16 September (CONFIRMED!)

Posted: Mon Aug 07, 2017 9:50 pm

by Lunkhead

No final "this & that" name decision yet.

Also, other than a lot of permutations of us locals, we've had a very small turnout of confirmed out of town guests. As the audience usually consists mostly of performers, I'm a little concerned that our audience is going to be much smaller than usual and that the venue may be very dissatisfied. If you're coming please let us know ASAP if you haven't already. If you're on the fence, please consider coming, it's going to be a lot of fun. If you know anybody who's coming or thinking about it tell them to come and to RSVP. It's going to be a bit awkward if we just have 3 hours of the same six people performing in different lineups both nights with a small crowd. :/